Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!
(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)
You have been in Afghanistan, I presume.
"Rrrrr!"
"Growf!"
"Hissss!"
Natsuki flinched, then tried to get back to her book.
You have been in—
A rattling of porcelain cut through any attempt at concentration. She looked over from the couch towards the pets. Duran and Kiyohime were engaged in a vigorous game of tug-o'-war, using their special braided rope. The thick end was clamped between Duran's jaws, but two of the thin ends hung limply. Kiyohime's second and fifth heads, unwilling to give up so easily, had let go of their ropes and instead coiled themselves around one leg of the side table. As Natsuki watched, Duran gave another fierce pull, and the table shifted a fraction of an inch, causing the rattle to repeat.
"Oi!" Natsuki snapped. "Knock it off! Or do you two want to try explaining to Shizuru how you tipped over the table and smashed her Heian-era tea set?"
She didn't think she'd ever seen seven such sheepish faces before, but they managed it somehow.
"It's fine to play, but don't smash up the furniture, okay?" she said. Duran nuzzled at her hand for reassurance and she gave him a scratch behind the ears. "And if Kiyohime grabs something breakable, that doesn't mean you have to keep pulling, boy."
Kiyohime's fifth head gave a hiss that sounded eerily like a snicker to Natsuki.
"And if you cheat to win it doesn't count, either!"
The third head poked the fifth sharply with its snout. Natsuki wasn't sure if that meant "play fair" or "thanks for getting the loophole in the rules closed on us, numbnut." It could have gone either way; she was, after all, Shizuru's hydra.
Natsuki picked up her book again while Duran and Kiyohime pounced on the tug rope. She flipped through the pages, trying to find her place.
You have been in Afghanistan, I—"Whaaaa!"
The game had once more gotten serious. Duran's clawed feet, it seemed, gave him the edge on the living room rug (as opposed to the kitchen tile, where Kiyohime's lower center of gravity helped her out on the linoleum) and the hydra was again on the defensive. She'd listened to her scolding, though, and had not grabbed on to any of the furniture.
Instead, she had coiled three necks around Natsuki's arm.
The book went flying, and Natsuki only saved herself from being pulled off the couch by grabbing the back of the seat. She swung one leg down and planted her foot firmly on the floor to brace herself.
"Hey, hey! Oh, no, you don't!"
Duran, at the other end of the chain, kept right on pulling, with Kiyohime's second, fifth, and sixth heads giving as good as they got. Natsuki, though, was not going to get hauled onto the floor; she swung her body around into a half-seated position so she could use both legs.
With Duran pulling hard at one end and Natsuki refusing to budge at the other, Kiyohime's refusal to let go led to her, inexorably, being pulled into the air, with three heads pointed one way and three the other, her body suspended off the floor between them.
Just then, the study door opened.
"Na-tsu-ki," Shizuru caroled. "I finished my paper and—"
She broke off, crimson eyes taking in the scene before her.
"Natsuki," she began again, in a very different tone of voice, "would you care to explain why you and your dog are apparently using Kiyohime as a wishbone?"